Barn Door for under $100

You guys, I’ve always thought this house needed a good barn door. I’ve always pined away for some chipped paint antique door, which is hilarious considering that all but one of our interior doors ARE vintage, straight from when the house was built in the 40s! But you know what I mean. A REALLY vintage door. A statement piece, especially considering this wall and doorway is visible from the entryway. First impressions, and all. You can see where the old door was below, in our dining room 2 years ago before we swapped tables.

Lately, a series of things happened that actually justified a practical need for one of these babies. We switched our bedroom/school room yet AGAIN (the last time was 20 months ago), and got a bigger platform bed to accommodate our sidecar/cosleeper arrangement for Thomas. The door to this room swung in, however, cramping the walking space at the foot of the bed. We both agreed that a sliding door would be a space saver, so I asked Jesse if he could “donate” a few hours of Spring Break to a project like this, and voila! Super handy husband delivered!!

The first problem was what kind of door to get? Since this room used to be the garage before it was converted, the door inside the frame was 32″– bigger than a standard interior door. 99% of the cool vintage doors on Craigslist were WAY too narrow, and most of them were costing in the hundreds. Exterior doors would’ve been overkill and way too heavy. We talked about making one ourselves by throwing together a few planks of old wood, which was where the conversation was about a week before spring break.

And then, voila!! Someone listed their old vintage pantry doors from a house remodel! And the best part? Just $40 for the pair! On the first evening of Spring break, we drove the 20 min. as a family in the van to grab them. We leaned them up in the entry to the room and loved what we saw.

Now that we had the doors, I was able to order the hardware off of Amazon. You guys DON’T GET IT AT A BOX STORE LIKE HD OR LOWES!!! They want $200+ for the same hardware that we spent $46 on through Amazon! I have no idea why the price gauging is there, especially now that I’ve seen that this hardware is super sturdy, so it’s not like the lower price is due to shoddy workmanship. The rollers don’t squeak at all. I seriously don’t know why someone would pay more.

The first task was how to get the doors to stay together as one piece. We could’ve done two separate doors on their own sliders so that they moved independently, but we have bookshelves butting right up against it on the other side, so we knew that would never happen. Extra sliders would’ve been an additional $30, so we decided to try making them one piece first. Jesse had the brilliant idea of taking some extra wooden dowels we had in the toolbox and drilling those in between the doors to hold them together.

After this, it was a matter of removing the top molding off the door frame, shaving a few corners with a saw, and then adding a header board that screwed into the studs. I love how Jesse even thought to hide the screws behind the eventual sliding rail! <3

It took 2-3 hours total to install. I’m so thankful to Jesse for getting this project done without any snaffoos or issues. He’s become quite the handy man! Home ownership will do that to you, especially since we are attracted to older homes 😉 I’m so glad we got our barn door for under $100 !